Line of Duty
by written in dreams
Summary: The odds are in her favor that she won't be attacked again, and others' concern is on par with alarms in terms of things she hates. But if she notices that Eliot follows her home every night, she pretends she doesn't. Prompt: Eliot beats someone up for Parker.


**Line of Duty**

* * *

It was by pure chance that he found her. He'd made dinner for himself and a lady friend, but she'd had to cancel at the last minute, so instead of letting it go to waste, he'd boxed up half and headed out for the one person who likes his food more than even he does. She'd told him once where she lives—where she _actually_ lives—very out of the blue, her only justification being "'Cause you have to know where people are." It hadn't made sense at the time, but now he's sure as hell glad she'd told him.

He hears faraway shouting and first thinks it's coming from inside the hole-in-the-wall, but soon realizes it's coming from _up_. He glances skyward and in the darkness can barely make out two figures. One a much larger one, bearing down on a smaller figure who lies flattened on the rooftop. Feeling the familiar buildup of _red_ from his very core, he drops the box of cabernet-glazed lamb chops on the ground and jumps up onto the fire escape.

He's not a natural climber, never takes such shortcuts if he doesn't have to, but like most things he's above-average at it. He makes quick and silent work of the side of the building, hoisting himself up over the ledge. Moonlight and the streetlamps down below help to illuminate the rooftop, but Eliot finds he wishes they didn't.

He appraises the man first—6'4", 240, thirties—and calculates the amount of ways he could maim him. (Answer: many.)

Then he notices what Parker's doing. Rather, what she's _not_ doing. She lies prone on the cold brick, her face almost unrecognizable in bruises and blood, the rest of her body lying in an unnatural position. That's not the most appalling thing to him, however; no, it's the fact that her clothes are ten feet away from their owner, and Bad Guy is one pair of boxer shorts away from the same state of undress.

Eliot doesn't know what the hell's going on, only that he predicts lots of carnage in the near future. Before the man can even register Eliot's presence, his face says hello to Eliot's knuckles. He immediately cries out in pain as his nose breaks and blood comes squirting out, and Eliot grins. The man doesn't have time to dwell on that, though, because more raging fists and feet come showering down on him. Boot meets shoulder—dislocation—fist meets solar plexus—choking—knee meets groin—high-pitched squeal—hand twists knee—torn MCL—foot meets ribcage—three broken, lung punctured—head meets head—concussion—fingers meet neck—bruises—and then finally, when the man's vision is all but black and he has to blink blood out of his cut and swollen eyes, has to try and block out the blinding pain from, well, everywhere, he finds himself held over the side of the building.

"Thirty feet is a long fucking way to fall," Eliot growls, anger spitting from every syllable. He takes one finger away from the man's neck, his grip slipping ever so slightly. "Wonder how long it'll take."

He's a half-second away from dropping the bastard until his conscience—goddamn it—protests. Tells him he's not the mindless killer he once was, no matter what the instigation. He looks down at the pathetic thing squirming in his grip, and slowly brings it back over the ledge. Instead, he extracts handcuffs from his jacket—what? You never know when you'll need them—and tightens one around the man's wrist, the other to a metal pole at a very uncomfortable angle.

The man's boxers had been ripped throughout Eliot's rampage, and figuring the man deserves to be humiliated, Eliot tears the shreds away in disgust and tosses the remnants over the ledge. The man is nowhere near as broken—or dead—as Eliot wants, and indeed his fists clench in further anticipation—but he restrains himself, somehow.

Eliot squats down, his face inches from the man's swollen one. "I have connections," he seethes. "I have _friends_. Any given prison will lock you up for _life_ on my say-so. And guess what?" He pauses and smiles. "_I say so_."

Unmoving from his spot, Eliot pulls out his cell phone and dials a number. "Jiri? Yeah, about that favor…"

The call lasts about forty-five seconds, and Eliot's smirk tells the man all he needs to know. He tries to object, but all that comes out is a pained groan. It's one groan too much for Eliot, who sends one last punch to the side of the man's head, knocking him unconscious.

The rage then vanishes as he turns around to the other being on the building. He bends down next to Parker and picks her up easily, hating how fragile she looks in this moment. The stairs are nothing more than a nuisance, and though he's never actually been inside her dwelling before, he finds the bathroom quickly. It's quite expansive—particularly considering how nondescript the exterior of the place is—including the illustrious shower, which he turns on full blast.

Pausing only to kick off his shoes, he steps inside, sliding down the wall with Parker in his lap to let the spray fall over them both. He gently wipes the blood from her face and grimaces at the bruises spotting her body. She resists at first, as unwilling as Eliot himself to let anyone see her weak, but soon gives in, knowing it's not as if she can exactly _win_ this battle. So she ultimately relaxes into his strong grip, shutting her eyes as the hot water scalds away the memory of the man's slimy touch.

When the water going down the drain turns from pink to clear, Eliot shuts off the shower and steps out, making a mental note to sop up the puddles he creates. He wraps Parker in a towel and sets her on her equally expansive bed, quickly removing his sopping clothes and tying a towel around his waist. He rummages through Parker's home searching for first aid supplies, but finds next to none. Cursing her, he has no choice but to walk back into the bedroom empty-handed, and sit on the edge of the mattress.

"Who was that?" he asks her quietly, having neither the decorum nor patience of someone like Sophie or Hardison. He wants answers, and he wants them now.

She realizes this, knows she'd want them just the same. Pain flashes through her, but she replies in spite of it. "R-Rick Mason. He's…he _was_…I guess he was my friend…boyfriend…something. I didn't think he…we…that we were…"

To a normal person, she wouldn't be making much sense. But despite Eliot's mantra of calling her crazy, well, he's got some of that himself. "Has he beat you before?" Eliot asks, unable to stop his hands from tightening into fists.

Parker shakes her head. "No…he must've…he must've seen me with you or Hardison or someone and just…followed me."

Eliot wonders if it's possible for a jaw to break by sheer force of clenched teeth. "You don't have to worry about him coming back," he swears. "It ain't happening."

Parker gives a wan smile, and then frowns as she notices something. She takes one of Eliot's hands in her own and says, "You're bleeding."

He looks down and sees she's right—his knuckles are split open, the skin around them inflamed and red. "I've had worse," he chuckles. An only slightly awkward silence ensues, and then Eliot says, "I should let you get some rest. I'll come by in the morning."

He stands up and turns to leave, gathering up his soaked clothing and hoping Parker has some large coat he can borrow until he gets home. He almost reaches the door when— "Wait!"

He turns back around to see Parker standing unsteadily, the towel around her ankles. His eyes stray to…elsewhere for only a moment before he hurries back over to steady her.

"Stay…" she whispers. "Please."

He doesn't think he's the right person for this job—beat someone up, he's your guy, but TLC is not his thing—but one look at her face, and his resolve shatters. He gives her a semi-resigned nod and motions for her to get back in bed. She gives him a satisfied smile and does as he commanded.

He gently shoves her over as he climbs in as well, and she clings to him as if she's some kind of koala. He puts an arm around her, embrace tightening when he thinks of Mason. It only loosens when Parker gives an unwanted grunt of discomfort and he realizes he'd pretty much squished her.

She falls asleep almost immediately—which surprises him; he's pretty sure he's never seen her sleep in someone else's company—but he lies awake for a number of hours. He spends most of it furious, his muscles rigid, but eventually as he feels he himself tiring, he looks down at the blonde who couldn't be closer if she tried. He's just as floored at himself when he realizes the situation. He sleeps with many a woman, but very rarely stays; he's always gone once she wakes up. Right about now would be the time when he carefully extricates himself from her, pulls on his clothes, and bails, deleting his number from her phone and any napkin or stationery where it'd been written.

But as he continues to stare at Parker, he can't bring himself to leave. Even disregarding the fact that he predicts she'd rouse, and that he doubts she'd be attacked again, he…_wants_ to stay. From the very beginning she'd had a strange affinity of being positionally close to him, whether on the couch or sitting on his armrest or standing inches away on a job, and though he always pushes her away, there's not actual anger behind it. And she'd never been _injured_ when he did it.

Every fighter instinct inside him tells him to _get the hell out_, but there's something else that tells him to _stay you motherfucker_. So he tells the former to do something anatomically improbable, does his best to loosen his muscles, and shuts his eyes, letting Parker's presence not be unnerving, but rather comfortable.

* * *

He's awakened by not the dawn as…well, always, but by a shrill ringing by his ear. Honed from years of experience, he doesn't suffer that fuzzy post-sleep phase, switching immediately from sleep to consciousness which allows him to answer the phone after barely a single ring.

"Hello?" he grumbles, checking the time. 7:15. He can't remember the last time he'd slept this late.

"Eliot," says the sharp voice of Nate in his ear. "Where are you? We've got a briefing, remember?"

"What?" Eliot asks reflexively, before remembering. _Oh yeah. That damsel in distress case._ "Right, sorry. I've been…busy."

Eliot can _feel_ Nate's suspicion and confusion, but they've worked together long enough that Nate knows Eliot's professionalism, knows not to butt into Eliot's personal life so long as it doesn't interfere with his work.

"Well get over here A.S.A.P.," Nate says. "Hardison's getting antsy. Oh, and have you heard from Parker? She didn't make it here yet either."

Eliot looks down at Parker who's still down for the count—and as he does so, becomes acutely aware of the pins and needles sensation in his arm—and says, "No, I haven't. But I think she might be…sick. She didn't look that well last time I saw her."

"Sick?" echoes Nate. "She seemed perfectly healthy to me."

_Sure_, Eliot fumes to himself as he remembers last night, _perfectly healthy._ "I'll see if I can get a hold of her."

"All right," Nate agrees, still sounding dubious. With that he hangs up the phone, and Eliot presses the End button on his.

"You lied to him," Parker says. Eliot twitches—he hadn't realized she'd awakened. She looks up at him, one eye still swollen half-shut. "Why'd you lie?"

"Because I know what they'd do if I told them," he replies. "And besides, there's nothing they could do that I haven't already done anyway."

Parker squirms out from under his arm to sit up, hiding a wince. (Eliot notices it anyway.) "What _did _you do?" she inquires. "I was pretty out of it."

Eliot grins. "Let's just say he won't be a threat to you anymore."

Parker frowns. "You didn't _kill_ him, did you?"

"No," says Eliot, silently adding _Though I should have_. "Just…roughed him up a bit. And let my prison guard buddies deal with him."

"My hero," Parker says, half-facetiously. Her face sobers then, and she stares up at Eliot. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"Shut up," Eliot interrupts gruffly. "It's kinda my job to protect you."

Parker pokes him in the side. "When we're on a _job_."

"_My_ job isn't exactly nine-to-five, Parker."

Parker continues poking him absentmindedly, and he declines to point out that he's still recovering from a few cracked ribs from their last mission and that her prodding kind of _hurts_. "I don't even know how he found out where I live," she murmurs. "Or why he came here. I'm more angry at myself for not noticing him. I _should've noticed_. But one minute he was just…_there_, and I didn't have a chance to get any hits in. Guess I didn't learn your moves as well as I thought."

Eliot laughs. "Sweetheart, you learned just fine," he says. "But you're half his size, he was pissed and drunk and didn't care. It wasn't your fault."

"Should've stabbed him," muses Parker aloud. "I have plenty of forks."

Eliot looks at her like she's crazy—par for the course—but it's one that's softened over the years. After a few moments of silence, he says, "I should get to that briefing."

He slides out of the bed, making sure the towel is still secured around his waist, and walks into the bathroom to pick up his clothes, which are unfortunately still soaked. Parker appears at his side wrapped in a sheet, and holds out a pair of jeans and a shirt that looks awfully familiar.

"Those are—how—why do you have my clothes, Parker?" he asks, recognizing these as ones he hasn't seen in a long while.

"I have some of everybody's," she answers as if that's normal. "Well, not Nate's, but yours, Hardison's, and Sophie's."

Eliot learned a long time ago it's often best not to ask Parker "why," as it either gets you an answer you don't want or don't understand. So he simply takes the outfit from her and changes into it, hanging his others on the towel rack (she'd stolen his clothes once…at least this way he saves himself the annoyance of her breaking into his house).

"Y'all right?" he asks. She's now covered from the neck down, but he can't get the image of her bruised and bleeding out of his head no matter how hard he tries.

Parker waves her hand dismissively. "I'm fine," she answers with a trace of defensiveness. "You've done enough."

He hasn't, because he _should have been there_, but bites his tongue. He and Parker are all too similar in a lot of ways, and there's nothing he hates more than people pitying him. "Okay," he says reluctantly. "But…just…"

"I will."

He goes to leave and face an undoubtedly too-curious group of thieves, and gets all the way to the front door this time before Parker catches up with him. He turns at her footsteps, just in time for her to kiss him full on the mouth. He's sure his face must be shell-shocked, because that's sure as hell what he feels like.

"Uh…"

"That's what you're supposed to do, right?" Parker asks a bit uncertainly. "In all of Sophie's movies that's what people do."

_Yeah, maybe if you're Nicholas Sparks._

"Some people, I guess."

Eliot doesn't really know what the protocol is here, so he just briefly presses a kiss to her cheek and hurries out the door before she can do anything else that Sophie's movies tell her.

* * *

The case is pretty standard fare, and Nate comes up with a plan as quick as he usually does, delegates assignments to everybody, including Parker's for whomever sees her next. Nate and Sophie head out for lunch, leaving Eliot and Hardison in the apartment.

"Dude, hang on," Eliot says before Hardison can unplug all his equipment. "Can you look someone up for me?"

Hardison raises an eyebrow, but complies. "Name?"

"Rick Mason."

"That's kind of vague—oh, never mind," says Hardison as his computer instantly beeps and calls up a police record. Eliot tries to read over Hardison's shoulder as usual, but the hacker swats him away (also as usual). "Richard Mason, 32," Hardison recites, "charges: assault, battery, and attempted rape, prison sentence: indeterminate." He pauses, brows coming together. "Weird…indeterminate…?"

He glances over at Eliot, who has a satisfied smile on his face.

"Uh…who is this guy, Eliot? None of our cases have been for rape, and I've never heard of this guy before," says Hardison skeptically.

"Nobody," replies Eliot. "Just some bastard who deserves to be put away forever."

He leaves before Hardison can ask him any more questions, stopping only to grab a beer before striding out of the condo. "Thanks for being so helpful," Hardison calls fruitlessly after him. He studies Mason some more, but can't find any ways he might be connected to Eliot. "Paranoia," he scoffs.

* * *

Parker joins the con the next day. Fast healing is another aspect that links her and Eliot, and though her eye is still a little swollen and parts of her are discolored—not to mention the grimaces she bravely hides—she passes it off as the sickness. Where Hardison and even Sophie believe her Nate doesn't at all, but he doesn't say anything, trusting her professionalism just as much as Eliot's. The con goes off without a hitch (or, well, without any larger hitches than normal), they all collect their paychecks, and head their separate ways.

Parker's senses are nigh infallible, which is why Eliot guesses she knows he's following her, but she continues on her way as always. Her place is entirely out of the way of his, but if he (from a distance, of course) begins making sure she gets home okay before heading in the opposite direction towards his own house, neither mention it.

Unlike the others, they neither grew up nor made a living needing to socialize and talk and schmooze. Their jobs call for silence and patience, and even though they participate in grifts now, they're never in their comfort zone.

At first Parker's mildly irritated at her lurky follower—"It's not like it'll happen again. I can take care of myself," she mutters to herself—but knows that there's no one more stubborn than Eliot Spencer, not even her. So she lets him, and before long she comes to expect it and even comes to enjoy the company. Others might consider it creepy, him following her every night, but then, neither of them has ever exactly fit in with the norm. Eliot decides he's merely doing his job, Parker decides it's kind of sweet.

Well, in an I-still-hate-the-world Eliot sort of way.


End file.
